Invasion of The Netherlands, 1940

By Pieter Jan Karsijns

(pieterjan86(at)hotmail.com)

The Germans lost a lot of Ju-52's trying to land at Dutch airfields, which were supposed to be captured by earlier dropped fallschirmjäger (paratroopers). This failed on a number of airfields, so when the Ju-52 came in there to reinforce the paratroopers they were met by the Dutch. Soon the airfields where full of burning Junkers, and the others were forced to land elsewhere, for example on roads. The airborne invasion did however succeed in capturing key bridges so the panzers could drive past the main Dutch defence lines. On the 14th of May, after the bombardment of Rotterdam, the Dutch were forced to surrender.

For my diorama I used a Revell Ju-52, their Panzer II and armoured infantry. The truck is from PST. I spent about three months building it.